02.04.10
Posted in Around The State, Commentary, Taxes, The Budget, The Economy, The Lege at 2:09 pm by wcnews
House Committee looking to expand sales taxes.
State sales tax receipts in Texas has been slumping for quite some time, Texas sales tax collections are $1 billion behind, and they are the major source of income for the state.
But the decline is dramatic. A year ago, Combs forecast essentially flat sales taxes receipts in the budget year that started Sept. 1; instead, they’ve decreased by 12.9 percent in the first four months.
To meet Combs’ biennial revenue estimates, Texas needs to collect nearly $44 billion from its revenue workhorse, the 6.25-percent state sales tax. It produces 57 percent of state tax revenue and about a quarter of overall funds, including federal money.
But just one-sixth of the way into the new two-year budget, it has collected only $6.3 billion. Last year, collections from September through December were nearly $7.3 billion.
And the estimates of how big the deficit will be in for the next budget cycle is looking grim. There are “educated guesses” right now of a deficit somewhere between $10 – 20 billion dollars.
The last time Texas lawmakers had to cut the state budget was 2003, when they faced a $9.9 billion shortfall. Next year’s deficit very well could be bigger. Some guesses that have been posed:
$10.8 billion: John O’Brien, director, Legislative Budget Board
$15 billion: House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie
$17 billion: Senate Finance Committee member Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands
$19 billion to $20 billion: Sens. Royce West, D-Dallas, and Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso
Which brings us to the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee has a Democratic Chair, but an 8 – 3 GOP majority. Here’s what an “An Outside Observer Analysis” [.pdf] said last year when the committees were announced about Ways and Means:
Read the rest of this entry
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01.22.10
Posted in Around The State, Commentary, Education, Public Schools, The Budget at 5:47 pm by wcnews
There’s a big whole in the budget and the next session is going to be ugly. Here’s the latest from Texas AFT, Hard Times, Hard Choices.
For months now, we’ve been hearing the comptroller report that state revenue collections have dropped dramatically as the national recession caught up with the Texas economy.
For several years, we’ve known that the school property-tax cuts passed in 2006 would not be fully replaced, as promised, with revenue from the new state business-franchise tax passed that year. When you hear folks talking about a structural state budget shortfall, that’s generally what they’ve been talking about. This “structural shortfall” terminology also has been applied lately to the use of one-time federal stimulus funding to cover the cost of ongoing programs–for now.
For decades, state lawmakers have failed to come up with a sustainable revenue structure that would grow along with the state’s rising population and growing needs. That’s another kind of structural budget shortfall less often noticed but of crucial importance. It’s the underlying reason why the state’s school-finance system periodically plunges into constitutional crisis over the inadequacy and inequity of education funding.
They go on to point out that “..in the last week, three key developments occurred at the state legislature”. They are:
- January 12: House Speaker Joe Straus announced the creation of a House Select Committee on Fiscal Stability.
- January 13: At a little-noted hearing of the Texas House Ways and Means Committee in Houston, it became clearer just how hard that “fiscally responsible work” will be. Analysts at the Legislative Budget Board estimated that the state in the next biennium will have at least $10.8 billion less than the amount lawmakers used to make ends meet for 2010-2011.
- January 15: The Republican state leadership triumvirate–Gov. Rick Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, and Speaker Straus–instructed state agencies to come up with proposed cuts of 5 percent of their current budgets to be implemented in the current biennium.
And yesterday there was a fourth, Special State Committee Formed to Study School Finance and More.
A key committee with a wide-ranging portfolio took shape today as the lieutenant governor and House speaker jointly announced their appointees. Today’s appointees to the Select Committee on Public School Finance will join two already named by the governor, plus the commissioner of education, Robert Scott, who serves ex officio.
Four senators named by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst to this panel today are Florence Shapiro (co-chair), Republican of Plano; Robert Duncan, Republican of Lubbock; Dan Patrick, Republican of Houston; and Royce West, Democrat of Dallas. The lieutenant governor also named Dr. Leonard Culwell, superintendent of Garland ISD, as a representative of the “public school community,” and Dr. Harrison Keller, former top education adviser to previous House Speaker Tom Craddick, as a business representative.
Four legislative appointees from the Texas House are Reps. Rob Eissler (co-chair), Republican of The Woodlands; Jimmie Don Aycock, Republican of Killeen; Scott Hochberg, Democrat of Houston; and Mike Villarreal, Democrat of San Antonio. Also named today by House Speaker Joe Straus were Dr. Richard Middleton, superintendent of North East ISD in San Antonio, and Larry Kellner, former chief executive of Continental Airlines.
The gubernatorial appointees to the panel are Switzer Deason, a business executive from College Station, and Mary Ann Whiteker of Lufkin, superintendent of Hudson ISD.
This 15-member select committee will hold hearings around the state as it makes a comprehensive review of the education funding weights, allotments, and adjustments that have built up over the years in response to various funding needs and pressures. For example, the state doesn’t just allocate a set amount of dollars per student; school districts are entitled to extra funding–weighted funding–as specified by state formulas for various types of students with special needs. Some other adjustments are made based on the varying costs districts face.
This is essentially the same crew (Perry, Dewhurst, Shapiro, et al.), that “fixed” public school finance in 2006 with a tax swap that has created a structural deficit in this state. Why anyone in this state would expect these people to come up with a “fix” this time is not rational. It’s unlikely the state can survive another failed tax scheme like the one that they came up with in 2006.
Today state Sen. Eliot Shapliegh sent out a press release on the “Texas Dropout Epidemic” and it shows that we’ve known for quite some time that education is the key to future economic success.
“If the current relationships between minority status and educational attainment, occupations of employment, and wage and salary income do not change in the future from those existing in 1990, the future workforce of Texas will be less educated, more likely to be employed in lower-level state occupations and earning lower wages and salaries than the present workforce.”
- former Texas State Demographer Dr. Steve Murdock
That was written in 1997. Economic success in the way of jobs that pay a living wage that can sustain families, of all kinds, and allow them to raise well educated children. Not economic success, as in huge corporate profits and a plethora low and minimum wage jobs. It’s well know too that every penny we spend on education is money well spent and is the best long-term economic stimulus there is. It’s been proven over and over again that as long as these people are in charge public education in Texas will continue to be neglected, like so many other things in this state. And it’s insane to keep returning them to power.
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01.13.10
Posted in 2010 Primary, Around The State, Commissioners Court, Election 2010, Taxes, The Budget at 12:35 pm by wcnews
Via BOR Perry puts extremism ahead of Texas, Rick Perry is putting a very narrow and extreme partisan Republican primary agenda ahead of the best interests of 4.8 million Texas schoolchildren.
John Bradley finally obeys the AG’s ruling, Texas Forensic Science Commission releases details about allegations of critical lapses at crime labs. Grits and the FWST have more.
Williamson County loses $1 billion in “taxable value”, via the Wilcosun.com:
Williamson County appraiser Alvin Lankford told county commissioners Tuesday because of a decline in overall new housing and commercial construction the county could possibly lose 3 percent, or $1 billion, worth of taxable value for the 2010-11 fiscal year budget. “Right now these are approximate numbers and they could change,” Mr. Lankford said. “Anything could happen.”
RRL has more on the start of budget prep in Williamson County.
“The biggest thing I think we are going to see [with property values] is in the commercial,” she said. “If their value goes down, residential picks it up. But usually that’s our windfall each year – new commercial property that comes on the rolls. I don’t know that we’re going to see that this year.”
“Residential picks it up”, translates to residential property tax rates will rise. Commercial real estate (CRE) is in the toilet. There are two buildings as you pass La Frontera heading South on SH 45 that have been finished for well over a year and still have no tenants.
Hardcastle on White, Perry can’t beat Bill White.
Hardcastle said while he supports both Rick Perry and Kay Bailey Hutchison, he said he is leaning toward Hutchison for a variety of reasons.
“I think Kay can beat Bill White, and I don’t think Rick can beat Bill White,” Hardcastle said. “I think the (Trans Texas) Corridor will kill him against Bill White. I don’t want to see a Democrat governor when we have a Republican majority.”
Shami not a Quaker, What IS Farouk Shami’s Religion ?
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01.07.10
Posted in 2010 Primary, Around The State, Commentary, Taxes, The Budget at 3:19 pm by wcnews
Jason Embry has the latest on this Perry campaign trick, Perry calls for new limits on taxes, spending.
Gov. Rick Perry called Wednesday for tighter constitutional limits on state taxes and spending, borrowing a couple of ideas that have been taken for bumpy rides in other states.
Perry, facing a tough re-election fight in the March Republican primary, called for a constitutional amendment requiring any increase in state taxes to be approved by two-thirds of the Legislature, instead of a simple majority. He also said he wants a tighter constitutional restriction on state spending.
“These two sensible amendments will engrave our proven fiscal discipline into the bedrock of state law,” Perry said during campaign stops in Fort Worth, Lubbock and Midland.
California, which has seen deficits in the tens of billions of dollars in recent years, requires a two-thirds vote for tax increases. Critics say the provision has made it more difficult for the state to cope with its budget woes because a minority of lawmakers can thwart the majority’s wishes.
As the Center for Public Policy Priorities points out this is exactly what got California into it’s precarious budget situation.
California amended its constitution to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to adopt a budget or increase tax revenues. Writing budgets and raising revenues are the ordinary business of government, but the California Legislature cannot act even with a vote of 65 percent. Because the majority no longer governs the California Legislature, the state is a disaster. Our own Governor’s website trumpets an October 29, 2009, article from Trends Magazine, describing California:
California is $26 billion in the hole and has recently been paying its bills with IOUs. Its once-proud schools are suffering and the prison system is releasing criminals early because the state can’t afford to keep them. Social services are being cut right and left. Infrastructure is aging and falling apart. Unemployment is nearing 12 percent. State employees are forced to take unpaid furlough days and many California cities are worse off than Detroit.
This is one of those things that may look great on paper but in practice is a disaster. If government leaders overreach then the people can vote them out. But giving this kind of power to a minority it s huge mistake. Again from the CPPP:
..[T]he Governor proposed two constitutional amendments, a California-style budget and tax restriction based on minority rule and a Colorado-style spending restriction based on an arbitrary formula unrelated to what Texas needs or can afford. Texans are best protected by a representative democracy based on majority rule without arbitrary restrictions. Texas faces many challenges but spending too much is not the problem. Texas ranks near the bottom in state spending. The Texas problem is that low- and moderate-income families pay too much in taxes while the top pays too little. Minority rule and arbitrary spending limits are designed to protect the top, not to protect Texas.
The “far-right off” in this primary is producing some truly disastrous policy proposals so far.
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12.21.09
Posted in 2010 Primary, Around The State, Bad Government Republicans, Election 2010, Taxes, The Budget at 12:02 pm by wcnews
Jason Embry had a good article about the budget conundrum we’re facing in Texas during the next budget cycle, Because of shrinking revenue, Texas may need $15 billion to balance budget. Embry does a great job of pointing out how we got here – the tax swap of 2006 has never produced the money that was projected and created a structural deficit. And what the GOP leaders priorities are. It’s starts out showing how Lt. Gov David Dewhurst is trying to finagle state agencies, except health and human services and public education, into cutting their spending.
As compared with a year earlier, sales tax collections were down 14.4 percent in November, and those kinds of returns have hastened budget-cutting talk. But what’s really driving the conversation is a decision that lawmakers made in wealthier times to put property tax cuts at the top of the state’s permanent priority list.In 2006, facing an order from the Texas Supreme Court, lawmakers passed a one-third reduction in school property taxes for operations, committing the state to spend $7.1 billion every year to hold those taxes down. But the tax increases that lawmakers passed at the same time to replace that money — most notably a revamped business tax — produce less than $3 billion per year.
So every two years, the state has to pull more than $8 billion away from other priorities, such as public schools, universities or prisons, to pay the rest of the cost of property tax cuts. Doing so wasn’t too difficult when the state had surpluses, but now that they’re gone, the property tax cuts threaten to eat up any revenue growth the state sees, even though many homeowners never saw much of a decrease in their tax bills.
To meet the state’s commitment to hold down property taxes, to pay for an increasing number of people enrolling in public schools and colleges and joining Medicaid rolls and to replace the stimulus dollars used to pay for the current budget, lawmakers in 2011 might have to come up with $15 billion or more to balance the budget, which now totals $182 billion over two years.
It appears that Dewhurst’s main goal with these cuts isn’t, first to make sure the state has enough money to operate, but to make sure there is enough money to operate while protecting the tax swap from 2006.
Because the cost of keeping down property taxes isn’t going anywhere — in fact, thanks to an additional tax cut for small businesses that lawmakers passed this year, it’s getting more expensive — Dewhurst wants to tell agencies to trim their spending so lawmakers will have some money left over for the budget that they’ll have to balance in 2013. He’d like to get House Speaker Joe Straus to sign on to a letter instructing them to do just that.
The lengths they will go to save the 206 tax swap, at all costs, is bordering on ridiculous.
And even though it is the state’s effort to restrain property taxes that is causing much of the projected shortfall, that effort could result in higher property tax bills because the state will have fewer dollars to help school districts, community colleges and other forms of local government cope with cost increases, she said.
While some of the Capitol’s best minds are already taking a hard look at the budget shortfall, it’s not getting much attention so far on the gubernatorial campaign trail.
That is the definition of “the elephant in the room”. The tax swap is sinking the budget, but it must be protected at all costs. It’s extremely interesting that a tax that Dewhurst trashed shortly after it passed, going so far as to call for it’s repeal, is now doing anything he can to protect it. It would seem that any tax swap, that insures the wealthy in Texas don’t pay their fair share of taxes is worth protecting.
Here’s what Dewhurst and Hutchison had to say about the 2006 tax swap back in June 2008, (many good links that still work and provide good context for the situation):
U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison called the margin tax “an abject failure” in what most reasonable observers would characterize as a campaign speech.
Dewhurst has weighed in on the issue too, telling the Greater Austin Chamber that we ought to throw the whole thing out and go back to the old franchise tax.
Our elected “leaders” should be trying to find a way to fund our state budget that is fair and equitable, not doing everything they can to perpetuate a flawed tax swap that they knew was flawed when it was enacted. As Embry so correctly points out, none of the members of the Texas GOP running for election want to talk about the budget shortfall or the 2006 tax swap, for good or bad. Which leaves us to assume that they have all accepted the tax swap of 2006 as sound public policy going forward. If not they should say something fast about what their alternative would be.
But this is what is facing the GOP as they try and keep a hold on all of the levers of government in Texas. They been in complete control of Texas since 2003, but have had control of the state since about the mid-1990’s. This has been a GOP plan all the way, and voters won’t allow them to blame Democrats for this mess. Just the people they see in the mirror. They only have one answer to any financial problem facing the state of Texas – cut taxes. Where will they cut taxes in 2011 to fix the budget shortfall?
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12.14.09
Posted in Around The State, Commentary, Election 2010, The Budget at 2:16 pm by wcnews
In today’s HChron Peggy Fikac’s article give us some interesting insight into how the budget process works in the Texas Senate, Legislator with right answer for lean times. It seems as though Ogden provides the “bad cop” cover for many senators, of both parties.
As Texas lawmakers prepare for a budget crunch, some felt relief and others trepidation when Senate Finance Committee Chair Steve Ogden changed his mind and filed for re-election.
[...]
“Steve and I disagree on a number of things, but I think his working knowledge of the budget is going to be needed,” said Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio. Why is that crucial? “I guess it’s because nobody knows how to say ‘no’ better than Steve Ogden,” Van de Putte said. “We’re going to have to say ‘no’ a lot. We have to be really smart about it. You just don’t cut 10 percent across the board. You need to be very delicate with this budget scalpel.”
The “no” factor is exactly what concerns Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, who this year pressed for an expansion of the Children’s Health Insurance Program. He said its fate was sealed even before GOP Gov. Rick Perry undercut the idea by saying he likely wouldn’t favor it.
[...]
Ogden noted that he’s far from a lone actor when the budget is crafted: “It’s misleading to sort of portray it as some sort of arbitrary process where you start amputating programs that other people favor. You’ve got to build a consensus, and you’ve got to pass that bill with a two-thirds vote in the Senate.”
While last sessions budget was relatively painless, as compared to how they’re projected in the future, from the way legislators voted (only 2 nays in each chamber) it looks like they liked the final product. Of course last session there was money, so next session it’s likely the no’s/cuts will more brutal than they were last session. Ogden, despite Dewhurst’s protestations, knows that the budget was balance because of the federal st imulus last session. With a structural deficit and the continued shrinking of sales tax receipts it’s going to be a battle next session to balance the budget. With a weak Lt. Gov. (if Dewhurst is reelected), it appears the Texas GOP felt it couldn’t go through a session without Ogden (see Democrats Need a Lieutenant Governor to Stop David Dewhurst, Possible “Republican Majority Leader”.)
Again,EOW doesn’t buy into the Ogden as budget messiah argument, that so many in the Texas tradmed seem to accept without argument. Yes, he can balance a budget. But the question that’s not being asked or answered is, is the way the Ogden lead Senate balances the budget best for Texas? Not to mention, it’s the law in Texas – the budget must be balanced – so if we had a new Lt. Gov. and new chair of the Senate Finance it would get done as well. Just with a different set of proprieties.
Unfortunately, if nothing changes, it’ll be Ogden who will set the frame for how the Texas budget get’s balanced in the next legislative session. Which means more of the same – more for corporate welfare, less for human welfare. Still hoping that Eliot Shapliegh will run for Lt. Gov.
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12.12.09
Posted in Bad Government Republicans, Central Texas, District 31, The Budget at 4:33 pm by wcnews
Via the AAS, Republican Reps. John Carter, Lamar Smith opposed package but lined up more ‘pork’ than Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, legislation suggests.
Three U.S. House members have lined up nearly $3 million each in earmarked Austin-area projects — items not requested by President Barack Obama — in an omnibus spending plan expected to reach the president soon.
A twist: GOP Reps. John Carter of Round Rock and Lamar Smith of San Antonio, who voted against the overall package when it cleared the House this week, arranged for more pork in the plan than Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, who voted for the House-Senate compromise now awaiting Senate consideration.
[...]
Carter added $17.9 million in individual appropriations, including nearly $2.8 million in Austin-area commitments.
Carter spokesman John Stone said Friday, “While (Carter) is very pleased with the success for many Texas projects in the bill and worked diligently to win them, the irresponsible overall spending levels demanded his ‘no’ vote, even though it meant voting against his own appropriations requests.”
That Republican logic is so hard to follow.
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12.10.09
Posted in Around The State, Austin, Commentary, Election 2010, Round Rock, Taxes, The Budget, Williamson County at 3:58 pm by wcnews
The sales tax numbers for Austin and Round Rock – as well as the state as a whole – continue their slide. Austin’s allocations are 8.73% lower this December than last, and down 10.64% for the year. Round Rock’s are even worse 21.76% for December and 12.43% for the year. (List of Top 20 cities in Texas allocations). For Williamson County cities as a whole allocations are down 17.05% in December and 9.91% for the year. (List of cities by county, scroll down until you see Williamson).
GOP Lt. Gov. Davide Dewhurst speaking in Waco yesterday, (tip to Comeandtakeitblog), appears to be willing to use the Rainy Day Fund (RDF) to balance the budget in 2011. He also wants most state agencies to cut their budgets by 2.5% to help balance the budget in 2013.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst discussed a proposal to cut state agency spending during the next 3 1/2 years, hoping to offset a budget deficit and projected shortfalls, during a visit to Waco on Wednesday.
The state’s structural budget deficit — the result of 2006 school property tax cuts that weren’t offset by business taxes — along with the bleak economy have contributed to a gloomy long-term financial outlook for Texas that spells trouble in 2013, Dewhurst said in a meeting with the Tribune-Herald editorial board.
A Republican who, as lieutenant governor, presides over the state Senate, Dewhurst said that by using the Rainy Day Fund lawmakers will be able to balance the state’s budget in 2011. But he said agency cutbacks are crucial to getting through the 2013 legislative session. The sooner cuts kick in, the better, he said.
“I’d rather start today so that any belt-tightening is smaller than if we wait around and sit on our hands,” Dewhurst said.
Dewhurst laid out a plan that would cut most state agencies’ budgets by 2.5 percent during 3 1/2 years to cover the projected budget shortfall in 2013 and give the state’s economy time to pull out of the recession. He said his plan would spare public education and health and human services programs.
The Center for Public Policy Priorities (CPPP) contends that the RDF will be insufficient to balance the budget in 2010, and they “..urged our federal officials to provide additional state fiscal stabilization to avoid cuts to critical state functions such as public education.
Dewhurst has a plan, he deserves credit for that. All candidates running for office in Texas in 2010 must address the upcoming budgetary concerns facing Texas in the next several years.
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11.20.09
Posted in Around The State, Commentary, Election 2010, Public Schools, Taxes, The Budget, The Economy at 11:55 am by wcnews
Kuff has a post today with links to a couple of articles about the economic snowball that’s heading towards Texas in the next biennium and beyond, State sales tax revenues way down. This TexasTrib article he links to states:
The people in government who look at spreadsheets — so the rest of us don’t have to — are getting nervous about the state’s finances.
Sales tax revenues have taken double-digit dives for five months running; in each of those months, the state’s income from those taxes has been more than 10 percent lower than in the same month the year before. In a state where a steady rise in sales tax money has become almost a rule, the intake for the last 12 months is down more than 5 percent. And budgeteers assumed not only that they’d match the old numbers, but that they would exceed them.
And an ongoing “structural deficit” — the kind of term that seems designed to scare people away from a conversation about money — creates an ongoing problem. In 2006, in an effort to lower property tax burdens, the state agreed to spend more on public education. Lawmakers created a new business tax, but it raises less than they agreed to spend on the property tax fix. The gap has to be filled every time they write a budget. Last time, the feds showed up like leprechauns with pots of stimulus money and kept Texas from choosing to use its Rainy Day Fund, raise taxes or make spending cuts. Next time, the stimulus money won’t be there, but the hole will be.
It’s impossible to see how that does not mean trouble for Texas, a state without an income tax that relies heavily on a statewide sales tax. And an ongoing, or structural deficit, means that the Perry/GOP tax shift of 2006 will cost middle class and poor Texas – because that’s who pays – even more money in the long run. As Kuff goes on to point out the other problem this creates is it will, again, put Texas public education back in the forefront.
In 2007, that gap was filled by surplus general revenue funds. More surplus funds were put aside that year to pay for the shortfall in 2009. Needless to say, no such surplus will be available in 2011. The Rainy Day Fund, assuming the votes are there to use it, might be able to cover both the revenue shortage and this structural gap, but I wouldn’t be too optimistic about that. But sooner or later, which is to say this session or the following one, that great big unaffordable property tax cut is going to have to be dealt with. The only thing that sustains me when I contemplate the possibility of another term for Rick Perry is the knowledge that this reckoning would have to happen on his watch.
Of course, I’m sure he’ll defend the property tax cut to his last dying breath, and if he has to provoke a budgetary crisis or two to do that, he will. But his options may be limited this time around.
We knew it back when the tax shift was passed in 2006 that it was only “kicking the can down the road”, so this should surprise no one. And for all of the credit Perry has taken for Texas’ economy doing so well, he’ll definitely be more than willing to take the blame for this….right?
These issues will continue to become bigger as we continue to move forward toward the 2010 primary and general election, and all candidates running for office need to be able to speak about how they will tackle them.
[UPDATE]: Unemployment numbers continue to rise in the state and Austin area. TWC press release.
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11.10.09
Posted in Around The State, Criminal Justice, Right Wing Lies, The Budget, Williamson County at 6:20 pm by wcnews
BOR on Bradley’s day in front of the committee, John Bradley to Serve as Rick Perry’s Puppet on Texas Forensic Science Commission.
Eventually, the bigger picture left the hearing — that going forward, the Texas Forensic Science Commission should be a place where the best forensic science can be determined, where mistakes can be evaluated, and where the work done by law enforcement across the state can be guaranteed to be the best work imaginable. But that’s only going to happen because of the work of Senator John Whitmire, Senator Rodney Ellis, and Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa. Of the Senators attending the hearing, the three Democrats carried the lion’s share of the work. Republican Senator Dan Patrick asked questions that would have made a Rick Perry criminal justice staff person proud, and Senator Glenn Hegar sounded like he wrote his remarks while taking a bus to school in the morning.
Ultimately, I have faith that our Democratic State Senators will be able to kick-start this Commission into moving in the right direction. I also believe that John Bradley actually wants to make that happen. But that’s only his second job.
Bradley’s first job, which was made clear during today’s hearing, was that he is to work as Rick Perry’s puppet and delay the Commission’s work for as long as possible — at least until it is no longer politically damaging to Governor Perry.
The answers the people of Texas and, indeed, across the country are looking for from Rick Perry’s cover-up are well protected and hidden with John Bradley chairing the Texas Forensic Science Commission.
The Texas Trib has a couple of audio cuts, Bradley Makes His Case. The little bit of the hearing I watched I was under-impressed. Bradley seemed defensive and arrogant, and the questions didn’t seem very sharp.
It’s going to be hard to write a 2011 budget in Texas. All candidates need to be able to answer serious questions about this. If they don’t want to raise new money, aka taxes, they must be able to answer, specifically, what they will cut.
Picke up Nick Blakeslee’s book Tulia: race, cocaine, and corruption in a small Texas town at a garage sale over the weekend. He’s a great writer. When I googled his name found this piece he wrote about Enron in 2002 in The Nation, How Enron Did Texas. How soon we forget what the Texas GOP and the corporate criminals in Texas did.
As Enron wedged its way into the inner circles of state government, the company’s political largesse became legendary. “I think they viewed campaigns as an investment strategy, and it paid off for them,” Woodson said. The most important investment Enron made was in George W. Bush’s first gubernatorial campaign, in 1994. As Bush somewhat disingenuously sought to remind voters this past December, Lay had been a minor patron of Democratic Governor Ann Richards. But when W. entered politics, Lay switched horses in a big way. A longtime supporter of the Bush clan, Lay was considered for a Cabinet post during the first Bush presidency. He then became a close adviser to W. and a key source of funds: $146,500 from Enron PACs and executives in the 1994 campaign. After Bush eked out a narrow win over Richards, the new governor gave the company a fundamental component of its Texas strategy in one of his first appointments: Public Utility Commissioner Pat Wood, a deregulator’s dream.
Texas GOP members of Congress may be getting teabagger challengers, Tea parties inspire some GOP challengers.
U.S. Rep. Michael Conaway of Midland was among 16 Texas Republicans who sailed to renomination last year, unopposed in their party’s March primary.
But in March, Conaway looks to be among half a dozen members of the state’s GOP caucus, including Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin, facing challenges from people inspired to run, in part, by tea party rallies.
Initially dismissed by some as inconsequential shout-a-thons and by others as pseudo-events cooked up by GOP-leaning special interests, the tea parties are showing signs of branching out from rallies to involvement in election-year politics. The movement has inspired some people to consider running for Congress and others to make plans for candidate forums.
The unintended consequences of teabagging. Some on the right wing fringe are growing weary of the teabagging moniker.
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